Ever inventive, Young Keith has now pointed out that a better picture for the Trinity might be the Triple Point of water - the combination of temperature and pressure at which all three phases exist in equilibrium. Ice, water and steam - each distinct, each interrelating, each of the same substance. I'm pretty sure it's heretical as well, something to do with dividing the essence and therefore heading for Tritheism. But because working that through is giving me a headache, instead I'm banning this one on "Eileen's Rule", which states that if you need to explain your illustration before you use it, you might as well do without it.
This Sunday's motto is henceforth to be "It's a mystery - get over it". We're going to project The Hospitality of Abraham on the Moot House ceiling and leave everyone to puzzle it out for themselves.
Or...we could admit that the Trinity makes little sense, is not Biblically defensible, and we'll find out the real nth dimension story when we're dead.
ReplyDeleteWe could. I won't, but we could.
DeleteI've often thought that the idea of three persons in one smacks of Freudian psychology. But, we don't really have to understand it, just to believe in faith.
ReplyDeleteI can remember a conversation with an SD, that I had got the Trinity Sorted - his reaction was to offer me his job, in fact, he said that I should immediately become Arch Bishop of Canterbury, because even he hadn't got it sorted.
So, the Trinity is one of those mysteries that I take on trust and believe - because as Jesus said "Blessed are those who do not see, yet believe".
Mind you, I have written to the Pope asking for an explanation, because, he is supposedly infallible - he might have some answers??
It was all sorted out a long time ago. I don't understand why people keep banging on about it.
ReplyDeleteYou ask what is the procession of the Holy Spirit? Do you tell me first what is the unbegottenness of the Father, and I will then explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be stricken with madness for prying into the mystery of God.
— Saint Gregory the Theologian
We have learned that there is a difference between begetting and procession, but the nature of the difference we in no wise understand.
— Saint John of Damascus
One of those texts where the effort of exposition is unlikely to matched by the increase in understanding of the hearer. Unknown.
Found it!
ReplyDeleteWalter Bruegemann Commentary on Genesis. p71 (think)
"The meaning of the text is disputed and likely the effort taken in understanding will not be matched by gains for exposition in the listening community"
Thank you, Daisy. Sound advice from the sainted Wally B.
Delete